Happy birthday America: 250 years

[AZ_HighCountry]

That is a lie.
A blatant lie. We didn't have a big Army or even a large number of colonizers to kill indigenous people. To the point that Spanish Kingdom made agreement with some indian nations that we called "Apachería".

British colonizers displaced them, killed them and expelled from their ancient lands. And after them US continued with more prosecution to the point that US just have "reserves" where white people stillenclosed them.

The indigenous tribes of Central and South America are likely to disagree with you.

 

[VCheng]

The indigenous tribes of Central and South America are likely to disagree with you.

The Spanish-triggered conquest of the Americas was probably the largest Indigenous demographic catastrophe in recorded colonial history, especially because it hit the densely populated Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and Andes first. Recent synthesis work estimates the Indigenous population of the Americas at about 60.5 million in 1492, falling by about 90% within a century, implying roughly 55–56 million deaths or demographic loss across the hemisphere. That number is not “Spanish soldiers killed 55 million”; it is the combined result of conquest, disease, famine, slavery, forced labor, war, and social collapse after European contact.

Colonial invasion / system	Approximate Indigenous or colonized population loss	Scale compared with Spanish conquest
Spanish / Iberian conquest of the Americas, 1492–1600/1650	Hemisphere-wide collapse roughly 45–56 million; Spanish core regions alone were in the tens of millions	Largest absolute Indigenous loss
Spanish Central Mexico	From disputed 10–25 million to about 1 million	Roughly 9–24 million loss in one core region
Spanish Peru / Andes	About 9 million to 600,000 by 1620	Roughly 8.4 million loss
British / U.S. / Canadian settler expansion in North America	North American Indigenous population estimated at 7+ million in 1492 versus about 375,000 around 1900	Enormous, but probably smaller in absolute numbers than Spanish/Iberian America
Portuguese Brazil	FUNAI-based figures often cite about 3 million in 1500, falling to 70,000 by 1957	Catastrophic; smaller than Mexico/Andes because starting population estimates are lower
British Australia	Australian Museum cites decline from 1–1.5 million before invasion to under 100,000 by early 1900s	Proportionally devastating; smaller absolute toll
British New Zealand / Māori	About 100,000 in 1769 to about 42,000 in 1896	Severe but much smaller absolute toll
German South-West Africa: Herero and Nama genocide	About 65,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama killed; around 80% and 50% of those populations	Smaller absolute toll, but among the clearest deliberate colonial genocides
Congo Free State under Leopold II	Commonly cited estimate around 10 million Congolese deaths, though estimates are disputed	Comparable to a major regional catastrophe, but not usually classified as “Indigenous” in the Americas/Australia sense

For the Spanish core areas, Linda Newson summarizes the scale starkly: Peru fell from about 9 million to 600,000 by 1620, while Central Mexico fell from a disputed 10–25 million to about 1 million; she also notes that Caribbean and tropical lowland Indigenous groups often disappeared as major labor populations and were replaced by enslaved Africans.

The comparison with later Anglo-American settler colonialism is different in character. North America’s death toll was spread over centuries and involved disease, land seizure, forced removal, starvation, warfare, and cultural destruction. National Academies data cite about 237,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives in the U.S. in 1900, and also note that adding Canada gives about 375,000 Native Americans in 1900, far below an estimated 7+ million in 1492.

Australia was also catastrophic in proportional terms: the Australian Museum gives a pre-invasion First Nations population of 1–1.5 million, falling to less than 100,000 by the early 1900s. Brazil’s Indigenous decline is likewise severe: Minority Rights Group, citing FUNAI, gives about 3 million Indigenous people in 1500 and a low of 70,000 in 1957. Māori decline in New Zealand was smaller in absolute numbers but still severe: Te Ara estimates about 100,000 Māori in 1769, 70,000–90,000 by 1840, and about 42,000 at the 1896 low point.

The key distinction is this: Spanish conquest produced the largest absolute Indigenous population collapse because it hit the largest Indigenous urban-agricultural populations in the Americas first. But Australia, Tasmania, Namibia, and parts of North America often show more explicit settler-replacement or exterminatory patterns, even where the absolute death toll was lower. Newson’s broader conclusion is useful: Old World disease was central, but the catastrophe cannot be explained by disease alone; killing, enslavement, forced labor, missionization, land/labor extraction, famine, and social dislocation all mattered.